(I am just putting one for each of these because I am writing this after we discussed our ideas in class)

This I believe:
I believe that doing something purely for your enjoyment and not out of any obligation is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself. Finding something that you love to do and doing it often can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression while increasing your overall satisfaction with your life. For most of my life, I did things out of obligation. I did well in school and took hard classes because it was expected of me, I played soccer with people who were incredibly rude to me because I had played my entire life, and I did it all without enjoyment because I felt like I was obligated to. It was not until my senior year when those girls left that I began to find enjoyment in soccer, as I was not being pressured to reach a certain standard to appease those girls. My senior year I also registered for an AP Literature course, even though my advisor warned me against it as it would not help me with my major, because I thought it was something I would enjoy, and it ended up being my favorite class. I continue this idea as I am at college by being in a choir.

Passion:
My one idea is to do classical music recommendations for people who hate classical music. There are plenty of people who think classical music is boring and slow, and I want to disprove that notion. I also want to look into the history of the songs and why the composer wrote them. For example, Pas de Deux by Tchaikovsky was written for the ballet The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky received news of his sister’s death as he was composing the ballet and channeled his grief into this very emotional and melancholy song.

Civil:
For my civil blog, I want to write about how America’s standards for elected and appointed officials have changed from previous officials. I am interested in looking at how the policy and rhetoric have changed for current politicians, and what has happened in recent years that has allowed us to be accepting of things that we previously wouldn’t have been.